Potential Research Questions

Which nutritional advice shall I give my patient?How can I achieve the intended weight loss?Can health effects of this functional nutrition be proven?

Status Quo and Medical Need

It is common sense that healthy nutrition and physical activity have positive health effects. The problem is, what is healthy and what is not is not always clear-cut. The recent discussion whether polyunsaturated fatty acids are not that healthy after all, and the long held but wrong believe that nutritional cholesterol sources are bad, are examples. It also turns out that a food that may be healthy for one person may not be so healthy for another – with genetic background, lifestyle and environmental factors, as well as the microbiome contributing to the variability of health effects of food.

Targeted Metabolomics is a powerful technology to generate broad molecular profiles that can shed light on the effects that food components have under specific circumstances. It can be applied in basic and clinical research, and also helps optimize nutrition of farm animals.

Relevant Metabolite Classes

Amino acids:

A number of amino acids are essential and need to be taken up with food or provided by intestinal bacteria. Within this group, increased branched chain amino acid levels are early markers of diabetes. Tryptophan, another essential amino acid, is important in immune regulation.